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Another one of the older teas in my stash. Dry leaf is tightly rolled like gunpowder; aroma is charcoal and lightly burnt toast, which turns more towards freshly baked bread crust while steeping. In my first taste I immediately picked up dark chocolate, although it didn’t stick around very long. Mineral notes are also present, becoming a metal-like tang in the back of my throat and sides of my palate. I’m not getting any fruit, but maybe some kind of wood instead? Sandalwood perhaps?

The flavor isn’t really wowing me, but it is giving me a bit of a happy warm fuzzy feeling.

Picked two bags of this up from a cruddy little London hotel I stayed at a few months ago. I prepared it the same way as I do any new bagged black: boiling water, 3-4 minutes, 1 tsp sugar, splash of soymilk.

It had quite a malty aroma while steeping. I was a little dismayed when the liquor turned a muddy brown after adding the milk, rather than the usual warm coppery color, but that’s just cosmetic.

The taste isn’t much better – it’s definitely black tea, but a weird mishmash of flavors I’m unaccustomed to (is that lemon I’m picking up?), and way too much sugar for the strength of the blend. It was okay when I was sipping it along with my morning toast, but I’m not a fan of it by itself. I’ll try the other bag lightly steeped & plain to start with. Apparently this brand is based in the Netherlands, so maybe they take it differently there?

Don’t Be Afraid Of Tea, part 3

A very complex, intriguing offering from Stacy. Dry leaf smells strongly of fresh pineapple; while steeping, the pineapple aroma is overtaken by perfume-like florals. The taste is less perfumey but still very floral, with a well-integrated mild pineapple flavor. Neither agave nor sugar changed the flavor much at all, so I’d probably drink this unsweetened.

Flowery, pineappley oolong – does what it says on the tin. Not sure this is entirely up my alley, but it is very interesting and impressive nonetheless!

Another one of my very old teas. The best-before date for this one is 10 months ago, but I was able to detect honey notes and some muskiness. I’m still undecided about Darjeelings in general, but this wasn’t too shabby for a tea that’s probably gone stale.

Part 2 in my Don’t Be Afraid Of Tea series.

Some of my teas are getting pretty old. Out of curiosity I searched my email archives for my first Butiki order. It was placed 11 months ago. Yikes. So yeah, now I know which ones to prioritize.

Dry leaf consists of gunpowder-like pellets that are fragrant with a metallic tang. Like gunpowder, they also expand a crazy amount while steeping (how the heck did they get such a long stem rolled into such a tiny ball?!) but with a sweet, woody (iirc) aroma.

Initially I wasn’t sure what to make of the first infusion, as I wasn’t tasting honey or apples or anything else in the notes, but flowers. Just oolongy, orchidy flowers, especially in the aftertaste, which made me seriously question my palate. Fortunately I like most florals in my tea, so I was happy. Subsequent steeps were progressively weaker, with that same metallic tang from the dry leaf scent coming out in the third.

Not what I was expecting, but very enjoyable nonetheless! I’ll try using different water & parameters to see if I can coax out some of the flavors that other people are getting.

Hooray, Whittard has steeping instructions for this on their website now! Unfortunately 2 minutes is too long for the first steep, especially with the amount of dust and broken leaves I pulled up in my spoon. The flavor is pretty good, but I dislike the astringency, which makes the entire inside of my mouth feel like fine sandpaper. Next time I’ll try it at 1 minute and see how that works out.

The aroma of the dry leaf is amazing, though. I could spend all day with my face in the container.

I am the worst. I keep buying tea and not drinking it because I’m still afraid of screwing up and wasting tea, like hoarding it and letting it go stale is so much better.

Well not anymore! I finally cracked into this pouch and I’m glad I did! I wasn’t sure how I’d take to this one, as it’s supposed to be similar to dragonwell and I haven’t been too impressed with the dragonwells I’ve tried thus far, but I was not disappointed. It’s a little sweet, a little savory, with a light dryness at the end of the sip. It’s quite moreish, as they say here in UKland – I keep grabbing the cup for another mouthful as soon as I’m finished with the preceding one. Yummy!

I seem to have come down with something that resembles the early stages of flu. This evening I cracked open my box of Lemon Zinger to up my fluid intake – something unfussy that I was pretty sure I’d find palatable.

I had mine sweetened (although with less than the 2 tsp of sugar I’d used as a kid) and it was like a nice, warm, soothing liquid throat drop. I’m not sure I’d want to drink this unsweetened, but sue me, I like it my way :P

Backlog.
Based on the description I had really high hopes for this tea, but something must have gone awry. I was expecting sweet creaminess but instead I got something that tasted like harsh tap water from a house with old pipes. I gave up after two steeps.

I fully acknowledge that I probably screwed this up myself – I noticed the other day that the water from our taps has taken on a strange odor, and in the last month I’ve begun using a Brita pitcher for my kettle. Is there anything else I could have done wrong? I really hate that I’m giving one of Stacy’s teas such a bad review!

Sipdown! Took me a while to finish the box, and while I’m not exactly glad to see it gone, it’s nice to have a bit more cupboard space.

This is pretty good, especially considering it’s a supermarket tea. It has a well-rounded flavor that works nicely with sugar and a moderate amount of milk (I went a bit heavy on the milk a few times and the taste suffered). I have a tendency to let my black tea bags stew, but this one definitely benefits from a 4-minute maximum steep.